It seems somehow cheeky now, what with them all so grey and aching and plain ordinary old. Cheeky to call her Rosie in his head, when she's been Rose and Mistress Rose and Mother Rose and Gammer Gardner since the days when she was Rosie.
But she's still just Rosie to Sam, always. She walks with a cane; her back still straight but her legs sore from long years of long washdays, bending to pick up clothes ready to be pegged up in the path of the notorious Hill winds.
Sam knows he should be using a walking-stick same as Rosie but he can't bring himself to. It would feel like a betrayal of sorts: telling his poor old feet that he doesn't trust them any longer. Those feet have carried him long miles over the years and the least he owes them is a dignified retirement.
And Frodo, well. Frodo is Frodo, who is a handful of years older than Sam or Rosie and looks another handful older still. They tease him for his vagueness, for the way he hunts about for his glasses when they sit tucked atop the thinning mess of peppery curls above his forehead. The deftly curved lenses are Elven, of course, one of the last beautiful things left as a legacy of a beautiful race. But Frodo is not vague underneath that ordinary everyday forgetfulness... which Sam knows is a tactic to goad Rosie into teasing more than anything else.
Frodo forgot everything once, lost it all in the dark. For years and years since that moment he has dedicated himself to the preservation of ideas and histories, written things down and pinned the thoughts so they have no chance to slip into the abyss. Now age seeks to blur the edges of his sharp intelligence, dim the lights ever so slightly at the periphery of memory, and Sam suspects that this time Frodo can see it will be not a defeat but instead a gentle surrender.
They are visiting Elanor, meeting the first of their great grandchildren. A small squalling pink creature, grey-green-eyed and showing signs it will grow to have the same pretty shell-like ears which a much younger Rosie was once so proud of. The baby's name is Layla, which Sam says is a nice return to the old sort of style - too many of his grandchildren have fancy, modern, brittle names. Frodo finds this disgust of Sam's a continued source of amusement, and Rosie agrees. They chuckle whenever Sam complains about it, they say it's turnabout for the solid and well-worn names he insisted on for those long-ago grown-up babies who once raced up and down Bag End's hallways as if there were no tomorrow. Seems that turnabout's been turned about again, now, and the babies who got fancy Elvish-inspired and so-called 'poetical' titles are choosing Layla and Marigold and Saradoc for their own wee ones.
Late, so late the sky is starting to lighten back into early again, the three of them go walking. The ocean is quiet for once, perhaps it somehow knows they are close and has hushed itself as a small gift. They do not like the sounds of the waves, it unsettles them somewhere too deep-down for explanations. Eventually walking is too tiring and they sit on a low dune, sand getting into all sorts of uncomfortable places but remaining unremarked upon. The quiet of the sea has become contagious and they have caught it, some reverence in nature they do not wish to break.
"So many stories," Frodo says. His voice is still clear, though the scratch of years with a pipe is there to hear. "And yet I never did tell ours as it happened."
"Goldy did," points out Sam. "She wrote it down. And Samlad, his copy of the Book has footnotes and amendments all over the place. That Aster, she didn't want any side-stories left out or overlooked."
"Those copies are their stories, even if they're about things that happened to us. Nobody will ever read it quite the same as anyone else; nobody will ever retell it quite the same either. It's out of our hands now," Frodo pauses, smirking at the unintentional pun as he looks down at his nine knotted fingers. "It has been since that first song was written for us."
"What you're really saying." Rosie's tone is soft, but not sad. "Is that our story isn't ever going to be known. Not as it really happened, not how we lived it. Maybe not at all, depending on which version survives longest. History is written by the history-writers, and who's to contradict them if they say it finishes with a goodbye?"
"Don't all stories?" asks Sam. The first sea-birds of the morning are beginning to stir as the stars become fainter above.
Frodo yawns. "Oh, Sam, it's much too early for philosophy."
"Hear hear," Rosie chimes in. "Way I see it, the story will end up whichever way it's needed most, and there's naught we can do about it seeing as how it's well out of our hands. So the milk, to be properly metaphorical, has been spilt, and there's no point wondering what we could have done different."
"Truly -" Frodo yawns again, and the yawn is catching and Sam follows him. "- profound, my dear Rose. Now, shall we seek out our wonderfully feathery bed?"
The question is so redundant that neither Rosie nor Sam bother to grace it with an answer. They begin their walk back towards Elanor's graceful home, their footprints washed back into flat sand behind them by the tide.
Pausing, Sam turns to look at where they sat, the scuffs and shapes in the sand all the evidence of their conversation. It seems terribly sad, for a moment, that all their small and vital stories are no more lasting than that.
Then Rosie turns and yells "Do hurry up, Samwise!" and it's a call which echoes back and reminds him of a hundred green seconds in the sunlight, a thousand inflections on those words. Always running to catch up, always following as dutifully as he knew how. And sometimes he was the one waiting, for small feet and piping cries, for Frodo's grumbling laziness in the mornings to subside after a few cups of tea. Leading, following, walking side by side by side together. Sam finds he doesn't care anymore if his life is recorded in books and tales.
"What were you thinking, Sam?" Frodo asks as he slips his arm around Sam's rather generous middle. Rosie mirrors the gesture, the three of them clinched as close as stiff joints and extra padding will allow.
"Nothing important," says Sam. "Just remembering things."
"Which sort? Good or bad?" queries Rosie. Sam grins.
"Yes," he answers, expecting a snort of exasperation from one or the other of them for his cryptic answer. None comes, however, and the only reply is the sound of the sea beside them. Sam looks to his left and then his right, checking to see what Rosie and Frodo are thinking. Their mouths curve in small smiles.
*
~
Pretty Good Year